The sound still reverberated through his head as Alex sat up and looked across the bedroom at the far corner where he had stupidly, or perhaps wisely, moved the alarm clock. It was beeping loudly telling him that it was now or never. He looked back down at his pillow, his dark blue eyes aching to close again as he thought about the late night he had just experienced. Damn… Mondays always made him regret the Sunday before. Alex rubbed at one of his eyes as he slipped out of the bed and walked over to the alarm clock hitting it once and then walked out of the bedroom.

His apartment was small and sometimes Alex felt cramped, but not in an unusually bad way. To the left after coming through the door was the living room and kitchen both connected to one another for easy access. Straight ahead was the bathroom and that was where Alex headed. Perhaps, he thought, a warm shower would wake up those senses that had yet to fully register. He was naked, his traditional way of sleeping. Alex looked at himself in the mirror, his dark brown hair was shaggy looking, and messed up from the night of sleep. His eyes were slightly bloodshot and he wondered why he bothered.

He started the shower making sure that the water was nice and warm then slipped in under it as he did he let go his bladder and sighed, relaxing under the warmth of the water. Alex was of average build and had no defining marks that made him stand out from the hundreds of other men that would be called average. He knew this and yet he did nothing about his appearance because he was uncertain exactly what he would do. He figured that if a girl couldn't see beyond his outer edges and into his deeper inner core then perhaps she wasn't even worth the trouble.

Alex sighed heavily as the water ran over his skin sending tingles of warmth up to his brain. He stuck his hair under the water and the warmth form doing this seemed to pass down to the rest of his body. He lifted his head back up out of the water and turned grabbing a bar of soap as he opened his eyes. How much had he drunk last night? Hell he hadn't even picked up a girl, not that he had done that in months. Had it really been that long? Alex tried to make his mind work as he tried to remember the last time that he had gotten laid. It didn't come to his mind until he was almost fully finished lathering himself up with soap.

Had it really been a year? Yeah he supposed it had been a year since he had truly gotten any penetration, and that had been with a semi-serious girlfriend. Not that he had many of those, hell he hadn't had a real girlfriend in quite awhile not that he was really looking. That was Alex's biggest problem. . .he wasn't really looking. He was twenty-eight, two years out of college and working a shitty job because it was all he could find, even with his college degree. Someone had lied to him when they told him that getting a job would be easy with is degree because it sure as hell hadn't been. He was stuck in a low paying, piece of shit job because it was all that the company he worked for had available for someone with his experience. He was a computer tech in a world where almost ninety percent of all students were going to school to work with computers.

Alex slipped out of the shower and pulled his towel around him as he looked at himself in the mirror. Well he at least looked better! That was something. He combed his hair and shaved then headed into the kitchen which was only a few steps away. There he grabbed a bowl of cereal and some milk that was two days beyond the expiration date and ate his cereal out of a bowl that needed to be cleaned because he had used it for the same function on Sunday. After eating, Alex got dressed for work, putting on a suit with a tie and checking to make sure that he had everything including his wallet.

The daily grind… how he hated it! It only took Alex forty minutes to get to work, but that was because for the most part he was not fighting any traffic to get there. In the afternoon when he went home at six there would be too much traffic. This was another reason for Alex to hate his job. Inside he sat down to a computer terminal one of over a dozen on the floor that he worked on and one of over a hundred through out the building. There he would sit from ten in the morning until six in the evening. There he would work on reports and try to not think about how many lines of code he had just seen. It was no wonder then why he went out on Saturday and Sunday nights to get wasted and maybe pick up a girl. Not that it happened a lot.

Alex was working on his third program of code around four in the afternoon when the phone rang in his office. The sound was so new to Alex that he almost jumped out of his seat. It was very rarely that he actually got a phone call at his desk. He looked around almost feeling guilty for his phone ringing and then picked it up. "Uh Hello?" He was almost afraid that it was some kind of a trap and that the boss on the other end would fire him for answering his telephone. After a few minutes he would wish that it had been a trap or a prank call.

"Mr. Patters?""

"Yeah that's me." This was kinda freaky for some reason he thought of the matrix and almost laughed but quickly forced himself back into reality.

"This is Patricia Reeding at The Learning Center I am one of Kimberly Schnider's teachers."

It took Alex almost a full minute to remember who Kimberly was, "uhh okay," was what he said during that minute. Then as he said it he fully remembered, Kimberly was his older sister Alice's daughter. He hadn't seen either Alice or Kimberly since the girl was three years old and that was six years ago now.

"You were listed Mr. Patters as next of kin to call in case of an emergency."

Why the hell had his sister done that. He lived in Dallas she lived in Houston, which was a hell of a drive if something truly went wrong. Then again, Kimberly's father had abandoned them eight years ago and his parents were both dead so perhaps it was best that her only other sibling be listed as someone to call. Still it was a bit strange him getting called from so far away. "Uhh I suppose that I am. What's going on?" ......(cont)